Telugu varsity celebrates silver jubilee

The melodic sortie begins with the rendition of ‘Mahaganapathim Manasasmarami' by Muthuswami Deekshitar and sojourns at Annamacharya's ‘Narayanathe Namo Namo' to reach a crescendo with ‘Bho Shambho' composed by Dayananda Saraswathi. The musical treat restarts when the VIPs arrive one after the other and this time it is ‘Adigo Bhadradri' by Bhakta Ramadasu followed by ‘Yendaro Mahanubhavulu' by Tyagaraya that leaves the audiences in raptures.

The occasion was the 25 {+t} {+h} Foundation Day of Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University on December 2, and the show was by the Department of Music.

It was a well-organised rendition with discipline imposed by teachers who hovered about snapping fingers at the instrumentalists to keep the time, counting ‘swara's on fingers, and slapping ‘tala's on their palms. Finally a smile of relief came and triumph emerged on the faces over the immaculate rendition by a group of about 20 students.

Two male sophomores from B.A.(Andhra Natyam) performed the virile and vigorous Perini Shiva Tandavam in a tribute to the ailing maestro Nataraja Ramakrishna who revived the 800-year-old dance form and spared no effort in popularising it world over. However, he was confined to bed and could not attend the festivities.

‘Pipeelikam', an adapted version of eminent writer Rachakonda Viswanatha Sastry's work, also was staged on the occasion.

The event also kicked off year-long silver jubilee celebrations of the university. Talking to the media, Vice-Chancellor A. Bhoomaiah said similar events will be held in the university's branches at Rajahmundry, Warangal, and Kuchipudi. While Rajahmundry will host the literary events, Warangal will stage the folk, tribal and Perini celebrations. The Sidhdhendra Yogi Kala Peetham in Kuchipudi will conduct the festivities on January 27 and 28.

Celebrations in Hyderabad were initiated with the ‘Kuchipudi Festival' held from December 2 to 4 at Ravindra Bharathi.

“All through the year, the university will host exhibitions by veteran artists. We started off with a paintings exhibition by artist P.R. Raju and every passing month will see a new show. Also on cards is a new programme to organise the centenary celebrations of eminent literary personalities and artistes. We will start with SriSri before January 10,” informed Dr. Bhoomaiah.

Chairman of the State Council for Higher Education K.C. Reddy arrived as the chief guest and inaugurated the exhibition by P.R. Raju. Also inaugurated was a new ‘Silpasala'(Sculpture Chamber) for the students of sculpture to work in. Latest works published by the university were released on the occasion.

Vice-Chancellors of Osmania University, Kakatiya University, Palamuru University, JNTU and B.R. Ambedkar Open University attended as the guests of honour. N.C.H. Koushik Kalyan, K. Kishore Kumar, and G. Naresh were felicitated as the Best Students for securing prizes for the university at the South Zone Youth Festival in Mysore.